Pop Rocks: Let's Have A War (On Men)

War, as I once heard somewhere, is good for absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, it appears we've been wasting valuable time and resources hunting down enemies abroad when our most dangerous threat is right here at home:

The battle of the sexes is alive and well. According to Pew Research Center, the share of women ages 18 to 34 that say having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in their lives rose nine percentage points since 1997 - from 28 percent to 37 percent. For men, the opposite occurred. The share voicing this opinion dropped, from 35 percent to 29 percent.

As battles go, an 8 percent differential is hardly Little Round Top, but perhaps author Suzanne Venker has some coherent arguments to make.

Or perhaps not.

As the author of three books on the American family and its intersection with pop culture, I've spent thirteen years examining social agendas as they pertain to sex, parenting, and gender roles. During this time, I've spoken with hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women. And in doing so, I've accidentally stumbled upon a subculture of men who've told me, in no uncertain terms, that they're never getting married. When I ask them why, the answer is always the same.

Women aren't women anymore.

I'm not trying to be all "Who was Dick Clark?" up in here, but I had never heard of Venker before yesterday (among her books, How to Choose A Husband and The Flipside of Feminism, co-authored with her aunt, Equal Rights Amendment opponent Phyllis Schlafly). And I so always wanted to be part of a subculture.

In a nutshell, women are angry. They're also defensive, though often unknowingly. That's because they've been raised to think of men as the enemy. Armed with this new attitude, women pushed men off their pedestal (women had their own pedestal, but feminists convinced them otherwise) and climbed up to take what they were taught to believe was rightfully theirs.

There I was, happy as a clam until these dames decided they had a right to salaries proportional to their work and not being talked down to by auto mechanics. Of all the nerve.

Now the men have nowhere to go.

This is true, as I'm told they actually allow women in sports bars now. I'd check for myself, but I rarely leave the house these days thanks to the high probability I'll run afoul of roving bands of angry, defensive women.

Luckily, I understand former Houston city councilman Michael Berry has some suggestions for places a man can relax with his own kind.

But what if the dearth of good men, and ongoing battle of the sexes, is - hold on to your seats - women's fault?

You'll never hear that in the media. All the articles and books (and television programs, for that matter) put women front and center, while men and children sit in the back seat. But after decades of browbeating the American male, men are tired. Tired of being told there's something fundamentally wrong with them. Tired of being told that if women aren't happy, it's men's fault.

Well, for starters, we put children in the back seat because it's safer. I'd have assumed an author of three books on the American family would know that.

I am tired, though. I'm tired of being lumped in with this right-wing approximation of America. It's the same kind of fear-mongering horseshit that makes them sound like such cowards: America is under siege by minorities, terrorists are lurking in every local mosque, traditional values are under attack by the gays, women aren't content to cook and breed on command. Venker and her ilk want a return to the America of Eisenhower's day, only presumably without the corresponding high tax rates.

Contrary to what feminists like Hanna Rosin, author of The End of Men, say, the so-called rise of women has not threatened men. It has pissed them off. It has also undermined their ability to become self-sufficient in the hopes of someday supporting a family. Men want to love women, not compete with them. They want to provide for and protect their families - it's in their DNA. But modern women won't let them.

Men of America, only Fox News dares to bring you the terrible truth: your inability to provide for your family isn't a result of crippling student loan debt, systematic exporting of domestic jobs, boosting executive pay or corporations downsizing to increase profits; it's because women are holding you back.

It's all so unfortunate - for women, not men. Feminism serves men very well: they can have sex at hello and even live with their girlfriends with no responsibilities whatsoever.

Rent isn't a responsibility? How about putting the seat down? Did you know guys drive like this while girls drive like this? And what's the deal with those VCR clocks?

Fortunately, there is good news: women have the power to turn everything around. All they have to do is surrender to their nature - their femininity - and let men surrender to theirs.

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